Pope Francis I is under fire today after new broke that the cleric he recently appointed to be his representative at the Vatican Bank is embroiled in a gay sex scandal involving a member of the Swiss Guard, condoms, a gun, and a lot of pornography. And the world is wondering if the Vatican’s “gay lobby,” as the Bishop of Rome called the supposed secretive, powerful, and anonymous group is to blame.
“On 15 June, the pope appointed Monsignor Battista Ricca, an Italian cleric and former Vatican diplomat, to be ‘prelate’ of the bank, formally known as the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR). As such, Ricca is entitled to attend meetings of both the bodies that oversee the scandal-ridden IOR’s operations – its board and a five-strong commission of cardinals,” the Guardian reports:
According to the latest edition of the weekly news magazine L’Espresso, Ricca has a past punctuated with scandal. Its report, which the pope’s spokesman branded as “not trustworthy”, claimed Ricca lived more or less openly with a Swiss army officer while at the Holy See’s nunciature (embassy) in Uruguay. It said he arrived with his lover and, while running the post between nuncios, provided him with both accommodation and a job.
The weekly magazine said Ricca was once beaten up in a gay bar in Montevideo and that, when the lift at the nunciature broke down in the night, firefighters called to deal with the emergency found him inside with a local rent boy known to police. It said that, after he was transferred to Trinidad and Tobago, that his alleged lover left trunks behind in Uruguay containing his effects. When they were opened later, they were found to contain a pistol, large numbers of prophylactics and sizeable quantities of pornography, the magazine said. Ricca has not made any comment on the allegations.
Today, the Pope is headed to Brazil to preside over World Youth Day.
In a meeting with Latin American clergy last month, Pope Francis confirmed the existence of a “gay lobby†in the Vatican, and said, “We will have see what we can do†about them.
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Image of Pope Francis I via Twitter
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